Code Colors and Art
Picking Code Colors
Color-coding is done in one of three ways:
Basic color coding, wherein all passes in a system are coded in the same colors.
Code by category, wherein each pass category is assigned a code color. This is generally too, expensive except in 4-color process system art.
Daily code, wherein all of the passes for a given day are both color-coded AND bear the date on the pass copy.
Specifying code colors, bear in mind that they are being printed on a material whose ink-bearing surface is as deep as most papers are thick. It absorbs ink like a sponge. Any color will "gain" up -- become more saturated. The darker a color it is, the darker it will become.
Select colors with no or very little black in their mix. (Consult a Pantone Color Formula Guide.) These are generally colors that are "center line" or above in the pages of a Pantone swatch book.
Also, select colors that can be told apart from one another in low-light situations. Do not select a yellow and an orange, for example, or a red and a fuchsia or a teal and a blue-green.
This applies in spades to metallic colors. In general, metallics are to be avoided on satin -- they lose their shine and turn all muddy. But if you just HAVE to have metallics, bear in mind that they are even harder to tell apart than "regular" inks, so the colors need to be spread even farther apart on the spectrum.
As a very rough rule of thumb, we try to keep colors farther apart than 60 degrees or so around a color wheel. We have noticed that, when you get past about 6 colors, you generally end up with two or more that can't be told apart by flashlight.
Art for Code Colors
One of the commonest mistakes artists make in sending us pass art is that they will send us a separate layout for each code color. This is not necessary. Color coding is done on the press.
The plate for the color coded image is identical for all colors. Only the color of ink is different.
Properly done, art only needs to be prepared once. Which leads to the next mistake:
Sometimes, art will be made that requires that the item to be changed is different from color-to-color.
This is a no-no, as it means that a different image, plate, and press run will be required to color-code the pass system. This increases the cost of the system, never a good thing. In general, the only time this is practical is for a multi-day festival. In such cases, we generally produce in 4-color process.
We at Otto use a specific terminology to clarify this.
We speak of base color and code color.
The base color(s) are those necessary to print the job. Think foreground, background or type, image, and background.
The base color(s) will necessarily include the code color(s). For example, picture a logo and type on a background. The logo and type are all printed in a dark color -- blue, for example -- and the background in an array of pastel colors.
The only change from pass to pass is the background color. In this situation, we at Otto would call the background the "code element". The base art is said to be two-color (2-c), blue and code. If the background is printed in four pastel colors, one-fourth of the run in each, the design is said to call for four code colors.
You can extend this concept to any design. If you have full-color art and want to change the background or a border, make the design 5-color. A black-and-white photograph can be rendered in a monochrome wash or as a black-code duotone.
But the point is that the code element must be consistent from code color to code color. Otherwise, as I say, the complexity -- and thus the costs -- increase.
There are technical considerations, of course. The mechanical requirements known as "trapping" dictate that all of the code colors chose behave the same way with respect to the base color. You cannot, for example, use a red base and have both black and yellow code colors if the code color must trap to the base. If you are a designer and do not understand trapping issues, you can easily get into serious trouble. Consult with someone who understands all of the concepts involved before you are committed to something that can be expensive or artistically disastrous.
As a general rule of thumb, bitmap art cannot be color-coded. Like most generalizations, this is not always true, but all-bitmap layouts should be viewed skeptically until all issues have been sorted out.
Also...
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